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Get Your Half-Price Tesla! Eventually

Remember when Tesla CEO Elon Musk personally guaranteed the resale value of the Model S to be 50 percent of its original value after three years?

That guarantee allowed the company to offer a lease with payments as low as $1,500 a month.

Today a 2014 60kWh Model S with a 208-mile range starts at just over $75,000 and leases for about $932 per month. With the first Teslas now a few years old, can they be picked up for half price? Are we now in the age of the $35,000 used Tesla?

With the Model S fleet now heading toward the first cars hitting three years old…, we are looking at CPO and how best to structure.

The half-price Tesla still isn’t a reality. Unfortunately for those of us on a tight budget, the Model S holds its value quite well. CarGurus listings include only 2013 and newer models, but their prices are still right in line with buying new.

With Tesla considering a certified pre-owned program, though, prices could fall as those early leases begin to end and cars come back to showrooms ready to be re-sold. The introduction of the new Model X could speed the influx of trade-ins.

Selling used cars through its own network of existing dealers would be a huge moneymaker for Tesla, but it would also help bring down the cost of taking home one the company’s electric game-changers.

Of course, this all assumes that nothing goes wrong in the next three years or so. Maybe demand will fall, maybe the cars will have reliability problems, or maybe Tesla will make the Model S obsolete by introducing the Model 3.

A lot can happen, but one thing we know for sure: Prices on the Model S will drop in the next year. Hang on for three years, and the half-price Tesla could be in your garage.

Would you be interested in a three-year-old Tesla Model S for half the price of a new one?